This Little Thing From Brain-Science Will Help You Lower Anxiety In Daily Life
The other day I had a vivid flashback to a scene from my childhood.
The memory is of my grandfather, stooped over with a little hunch, and wearing his auto mechanic’s jumpsuit. He’s standing in his study, pecking at a typewriter.
I remember being a kid and finding him there in the mornings whenever we stayed at his house. Every morning — it felt like — I would wake up earlier than everyone else and wander into his study and find him there, stooping over his typewriter doing the same thing: writing his “Daily Entry.”
A little while ago, I wrote about how science shows that putting our experiences into words helps us get through life better. That’s certainly what Grandpa was doing here with the Daily Entry. But as I’ve reflected on those memories, I’ve realized there was something else afoot, too.
The Daily Entry wasn’t just a journal. It was a personal ritual. And I’ve discovered that there’s something more powerful about that than I realized.
Throughout history, humans have used rituals to help people remember important stories and lessons. (E.g. In the U.S., we light fireworks every 4th of July in remembrance of our war of independence.) And in my research for my book Dream Teams, I dove into the science of how rituals can tie a group of people together, even if they’re very different from each other. (E.g. in the early years of my company we used to go around the table on Friday during lunch and have everyone share one thing they were excited about and one thing they were worried about. This helped us safely air issues, but also bonded us together.)
And of course, humans have used rituals to build relationships with God(s) throughout history as well. “Every faith is built around rituals and ceremonies that help believers feel closer to their divine attachment figure,” writes neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer, author of the wonderful 2016 book, A Book About Love. Jonah describes the psychology of “proximity seeking,” which is a natural urge humans have as part of creating secure attachments.
In other words, rituals help us feel safe and secure with each other. And that’s psychologically important for helping us to weather hard times or be able to take risks and explore uncharted territory in our life journeys.
All this gave me a theory about my Grandpa’s Daily Entry ritual. As I’ve been doing a bit of personal assessment lately, I thought that perhaps in the same way that rituals bring people closer to each other, a personal ritual like journaling every morning might help me get to know myself better. It certainly seemed to help my grandfather.
Then I realized something. I already have lots of personal rituals. In fact, the areas in which I feel the most confident happen to have little rituals attached to them. E.g:
- My writing ritual (which involves coffeeshop hopping and setting up my computer in a certain organized way, etc.)
- My thinking ritual (which involves long walks and runs)
- My “important interview” ritual (which involves wearing my fake glasses)
- My stress-reduction ritual (which involves cleaning and throwing things away) each are more than just motions — they’re my things that help me even though they have little practicality attached to them. (Well, maybe cleaning does…)
A deeper examination of the psychology of rituals shows that developing personal rituals indeed helps you to build a better relationship with yourself. But something else happens as a result of personal rituals.
They help us reduce anxiety.
Dr. Nick Hobson is one of the most prolific researchers on the psychology of rituals, and he’s got a bunch of stuff to say on this:
“It’s generally agreed upon in neuroscience research that the brain’s chief job is the following — to draw predictions about the future, and to orient behavior in line with those predictions,” Hobson writes. “A brain that cannot predict (one that is uncertain) makes a human feel threatened and anxious.”
Things in life are constantly happening outside of our control. This unsettles our brains. But, Hobson explains in another piece on the subject, “The very act of engaging in a scripted sequence of ritualistic movements tricks the brain into thinking that it’s experiencing the pleasant state of predictability and stability.”
In other words, for a person like me who gets bouts of anxiety in daily life — and whose interests and ambitions leads him to get into a lot of uncertain, often entrepreneurial territory (I suspect if you’re reading this you’re similar to me!) — rituals can be helpful in managing day to day emotional state.
And the more you practice a personal ritual, the better the effect!
“The certainty that rituals create through their basic structure gets compounded over time,” Hobson writes. “The more we do them, the more meaningful they become, both to us and to others with whom we might share them. And meaning, as everyone can attest to, is a powerful psychological force that can respond to almost any source of uncertainty and anxiety.”
So. I’ve decided to take a look at my life and see where personal rituals can help me feel more secure. I’m examining the rituals I already have, and I think I’m going to make some more. Maybe I’m going to start bringing my Lucky Coyote with me more places. Maybe I’m gonna make this morning meditation practice of mine into more of a ritual process than just a habit. Maybe I’ll start stretching every morning to my favorite music, going through the stretching routine we did every week at jiu jitsu class when I was a kid. I loved that routine.
I’m not saying that we should turn into those baseball players who have to turn in three circles before they can do anything, but I’m convinced that everyone ought to take a look their life and see where rituals can help us relate, perform, and emote with the most confidence.
After all, “rituals aren’t there to help us survive,” Hobson writes. “Rather, they are there to help us thrive. They are there to allow us to be the best version of ourselves.”
Shane Snow is author of Dream Teams and other books.
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